The approach to Atlantic City, whether by rail or road, is dominated by casino-hotel towers stabbing into the sky.  If the sun is out, the gold-enameled Borgata sparkles fetchingly, catching the eye and a hefty chunk of the tourist dollars: $48.9 million in casino revenue in April alone. 

But this April also saw city-wide casino revenues decline 12 percent compared with last year -- even the mighty Borgota slipped 2 percent. Competition in other states, especially Pennsylvania, is taking its toll. During a series of recent reporting trips, every single one of the twenty people interviewed stated that Atlantic City needs to diversify is attractions -- and fast -- if it is to survive. Fortunately, there is life beyond the slots and buffet lines.

Atlantic City's oldest restaurant, Dock’s Oyster House, was founded in 1897, and newer offerings like Tony Boloney’s pizza shop show that the casinos haven’t absorbed every restaurateur in the region. To test the livelihood of Atlantic City's extra-casino ecosystem, Flying Kite spent a night off the strip and away from the glimmering bay, uncovering the area's hidden reserves of independent eats.

Past is Prologue

Atlantic City was once famed for its night clubs, movie theaters, dance halls, barrooms, restaurants, grand hotels, and, of course the Boardwalk—the first of its kind. But after World War II, the rising incomes of working and middle class Americans allowed for vacations in distant (and reliably warmer) locales like Florida. Soon, America's Playground faced many of the same problems as other cities: white flight, empty storefronts, racial segregation and widespread poverty. 

In the 1970s, local elites were desperate to bring people back to the faltering resort town. In 1976, New Jersey passed a referendum legalizing casino gambling in Atlantic City. Crowds came rushing back, but as Temple professor Bryant Simon writes in Boardwalk of Dreams, a history of twentieth-century Atlantic City, it wasn't the type of crowd local business owners hoped for. When Resorts International opened in 1978, "Only gamblers, it turned out, made the trip…Redecorated restaurants threw out tubs of clam chowder and trays of baked ziti."

Independent restaurants began to suffer. As a 1999 National Gambling Impact Study Commission study reported, "In 1978 there were 311 taverns and restaurants in Atlantic City. Nineteen years later, only 66 remained, despite the promise that gaming would be good for the city's own." There is not a single movie theater or stage left in the city. Supermarkets are scarce. The casinos strangled the city's other entertainments -- the fewer restaurants and other attractions outside their walls, the less chance gamblers would leave. 

Meanwhile, a few independent restaurants and bars have managed to survive outside the walls of the casino-hotel complexes. They range from old favorites that weathered the arrival of the casinos by catering to suburbanites, to more recent establishments that serve the African-America, Latin American and Asian communities that remain in Atlantic City (home to the most diverse census tract in New Jersey). These are the exact kind of businesses that will have to be reproduced if the city is to return to any approximation of its former self. 

Gravy and Nostalgia

On a Saturday in May, we arrived under a spitting sky, heading first to Angelo's, an old school Italian restaurant that opened in 1935 and has been kept in the family for three generations. (It is also one of the few remaining unionized American restaurants, even if only the waitstaff and bartenders are organized -- Jim Crow-era conventions mandated separate unions for front and back of the house workers.) 

Its walls are covered in pictures of pre-war Atlantic City and yellowing portraits of baseball players and boxers of old. Angelo's represents one model for survival outside the casino industry: Appeal to the nostalgia of those who moved to the suburbs -- and build parking spaces accordingly. Located conveniently off the Atlantic City Expressway, guests don't have to venture too far into town. On a recent evening, there was a 40-minute wait for a table.
 
Putting our names on Angelo's list, we made our way to the nearby Ducktown Tavern, which opened in 2005. The Tavern is named for Atlantic City's former Italian neighborhood, Ducktown, situated just off the heart of the casino strip. The name "Trump" still looms over everything in electric red letters, though some signs are now darkened. (Their namesake is no longer a player.) Some of the old row house stock survives, but much of it was torn down to make way for casino development. 
 
Ducktown Tavern is a throwback to the barrooms that used to dot the city. It feels like a neighborhood bar -- dark, wood-paneled, with a steady supply of boisterous but polite drinkers and the kind of bar food you would expect from a seaside pub. You can get wings and mozzarella sticks, but you should probably get the clams or the mussels. We ordered both. 

When we returned to Angelo's, Angelo III advised a revivifying drink. We were seated amid a diverse crowd -- nattily dressed old Italian men in alligator shoes, co-eds in town for a binge and a dozing African-American gentleman, blissfully unaware of the roar around him.
 
Our waiter skipped such niceties as water, seeing that we were already supplied with the whiskies served by Angelo, and brought us our salads which were comprised largely of a thick creamy dressing and iceberg lettuce. The main courses were covered in delicious sauces -- lump crab meat topped everything from lobster ravioli to a New York strip steak. This is fine dining, so the prices are high, but their lunch specials are equally tasty and more affordable. 

Next we ambled toward the Boardwalk. The famed Steel Pier was shuttered, probably due to the awful weather, and we were too full to succumb to the $1 hot dogs, so we headed to the Irish Pub, right off the Boardwalk. It represents another way to survive outside the casinos: Provide an escape that doesn't require straying too far. 

The Irish Pub is beautifully furnished, offering a Celtic version of the nostalgia found covering Angelos' walls. ("Kennedy for President: Leadership for the 1960s," reads an aging campaign poster.) The pub's jukebox is of the non-digital variety: Its collection features The Pogues, Thin Lizzy, and a variety of boozy sailing songs. The bartender says about 85 percent of the Pub's trade comes from tourists -- gamblers, non-gaming drinkers and concertgoers (one area where A.C. is attracting tourists for something other than slots; Beyonce's first post-baby show was held in A.C.). 

At 11:30 p.m., the place suddenly filled with excitable ZZ Top fans, expelled from a recently concluded concert. A group of casino workers let us know that if we desired even cheaper beer (we did), they knew just the place.

The Bone Yard is a punk rock joint decorated with surf boards adorned with bumper stickers -- "Dutch Masters of Gore Grind" and "Urethra Franklin" are a few examples. Everyone in the bar appeared to be under 30, as might be expected of an establishment that sells enormous tankards of Yuengling for $5.

My companion (who I'll call Rudolph) sampled The Bone Yard's cuisine, including what appeared to be a hamburger stuffed into a hoagie roll of dubious quality. ("The bread tastes like linoleum," he happily informed me while finishing the sandwich.) 

After a helping or two of bucket beer, bed was the only recourse.

Breakfast by the Sea

The morning brought a strong desire for greasy meat and coffee. The North Inlet -- which has been predominantly African-American since the 1960s, when many whites left for the suburbs -- is home to two of Atlantic City's best spots to satisfy such cravings. 

Kelsey and Kim's serves the region's best soul food; there is another location across the bay in Pleasantville. Vegetarians should avoid the collard greens, which are cooked with pork, but everyone else should eat as many of them as possible. Also make sure to order their baked macaroni and cheese and fried chicken with homemade hot sauce.
 
Rudolph vetoed the idea of collard greens for breakfast, so instead we headed to Gilchrist Restaurant, a regional favorite that used to be located in Back Maryland, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Atlantic City. That location closed in 2007, and, after a brief stint in the suburbs, Gilchrist reopened in 2011 in Gardner's Basin, near a charming park with an aquarium and a host of tiny shops. There is a line on most weekend mornings, but we managed to arrive in between the rushes. The blueberry pancakes are just as good as the Philadelphia Inquirer's Craig LaBan claims.
 
Thoroughly sated, we walked along Baltic Avenue to our car, parked by Angelo's. The neighborhoods between speak to a great need -- for jobs, sustainable development, for livable neighborhoods -- that the casinos were unable, or unwilling, to bring. Now that the goal is for A.C. to be a full-fledged resort town again, those areas need attention. Right now, the city has a reputation as one of the most dangerous in the nation. A resort town requires a sense of safety and an ability to woozily stagger from restaurant to bar to hotel. Most tourists would not dare to walk from Angelos' to Gardner's Basin and, honestly, at night I probably wouldn't either.
 
Yet there are signs of progress -- even if the flagship of Atlantic City's comeback, the $2.4 billion Revel casino, continues to perform terribly. The renovated Steel Pier is a bright spot, studded with new games and rides, and Shaquille O'Neal's $75 million development, to be built in the shadow of Revel, would include a supermarket and a movie theater (the city's first since 1983). 

As we drove back to Philadelphia along the pine-lined Atlantic City Expressway, I thought about the restaurants we hadn't had the chance to try. Tony's Baltimore Grill on Atlantic Avenue serves the staples -- pizza and spaghetti -- and the comforting gloom of its bar serves as a haven from the flashing lights of the Tropicana a block away. (Front of the house workers there are unionized, too.) Pancho's Mexican Taqueria is located right next to the famed White House Subs, which frequently has a line snaking out the door. Skip the wait and check out the taqueria for delicious and authentic Mexican food -- the best I've had this side of the border.

When I asked Rudolph about Atlantic City, he told me he couldn't recall having a better time in a place he liked less. Small restaurants and bars can't anchor a beachside economy if a visiting family isn't likely to walk from one establishment to the next. To capture the tourist dollars of people like him (let alone families) Atlantic City will need to do something a whole lot more imaginative than building a statue park. 

JAKE BLUMGART is a writer and editor based in Philadelphia. Follow him on Twitter. 

All Photographs by Michael Persico